End of Software Support - Clarifications

End of Software Support - Clarifications
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4256 replies

S
Userlevel 1
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Oh Sonos! I am so angry about your announcement. I have 9 of your speakers all still “modern” but what is next? My Playbar and surround Play1s? I mean this is unbelievable way to treat customers who spent a lot of money for expensive sound system. I was sold a lie! Keep adding to your existing system and built upon it! There is no technical reason why older speakers cannot be still grouped with modern ones and receive sound in multi-room configuration. I will withheld from any further purchases until this sorry state of affair is resolved to customer satisfaction. For the amount of money I spent I would expect a short of a lifetime of music enjoyment. You have really lost in my eyes and I cannot recommend your system anymore to any of my friends.

B
Userlevel 2

I had plans in the new year to upgrade my living room sound system to a 5.1 set up from sonos, costing well over £1000+, I will now have to look elsewhere, as I’d expect this system to last many years, and not become obsolete after a few years! The playbar has been in production for a while, is this next on the list to be legacy???

B
Userlevel 1

Your Company truly does not respect the early adopters and if you believe that the way you handle this matter is not going to be noise that will fade into the sunset . I have invested in many dollars in the faith and the quality that sonos came to represent but that is about to change I have recommend prob over 50 systems to friends and family. We feel betrayed forget the business economics and greed factor how about the fact that you have miss lead us next one to die will be play ones for sure as they are discounted at Costco so not this year but next and another misleading sheeps clothing just very disappointed and now I need to replace my system with products that will not be trashed by company that think money grows on trees and uses that are blind ….. Sad day for all of us

F
Userlevel 7
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The News has now hit the UK Press, it’s in The Times, Headline Sonos Speake’s are obsolete within months! I think a quick rethink needs to be made on the announcement, but even with this they have lost trust in what was a loyal following. For any management reading these comments let’s see you put this right

A
Userlevel 1

i was wondering how many people on this forum feel they were mis sold their product? I was sold mine by Sonos staff in two shops as 'Sonos 5' (my product) is 'made to last and has a lifetime of updates’. I was told that they are quality products and Sonos has ‘one of the best customer services’. I try not to buy ‘disposable’ products and saved hard to buy my Sonos. I was sold a product that would last longer than 5 years. I would not have purchased a Sonos 5 if I had thought there would be a limited ‘shelf life’. I also think that it is certainly not ‘value for money’ as I would have bought something a lot cheaper if I had known. 

S

I don’t own any of the products that are soon to be legacy but I’d like to add they already lost me as a customer after removing the ability to play locally from an iDevice.  When my 2xPlay 1s become ‘legacy’ I’ll be looking at another brand for replacement speakers.

H
Userlevel 6
Badge +3

The News has now hit the UK Press, it’s in The Times, Headline Sonos Speake’s are obsolete within months! I think a quick rethink needs to be made on the announcement, but even with this they have lost trust in what was a loyal following. For any management reading these comments let’s see you put this right and admit what a balls up you made. 

 

Ouch!

 

G
Userlevel 2

I have just decided to turn off updates. I will see where I end up with the system. Happy as it is at the moment. (I have Alexa turned off - she is stupid and functionality sucked anyway.)

If I notice my CURRENT functionality is impacted on “Legacy” or “Modern” units it will be time to cut my losses and look for another system.

No longer interested in the Sonos of the future except to see the company stock value tank and Patrick “Ransom” Spence get ousted.

If I sound bitter it is because I am. 

D

Sonos have you have ripped me off! You took my money for 7 sets of Speakers and now you tell me they are to be made redundant... why should I buy any more Sonos?  I shouldnt because you did not take care of me. I invested a belief and my money in you... you took it and left me high and dry.........

C
Userlevel 1

What I really don’t understand is that it’s being said if Spotify update there protocol for example it will stop working. Sonos are saying they can’t continue to update these devices due to processor and memory requirements. How do they know what these processor and memory requires will be before any such protocol update has taken place?

I understand limiting new features etc, this is fair considering how good Sonos has been in the past with this, but why not just provide a protocol update?

If they are saying that the protocol updates are going to become impossible for the processor and memory in these systems, then exactly what processors and memory were they putting in these expensive systems? They certainly were never fit for purpose at point of original sale if this was the case and Sonos need to acknowledge there mistake and offer higher discounts on the newer range of products. 

 

 

N
Userlevel 3
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Quote from Sonos Annual Report: Our product roadmap is largely focused on delivering products with voice control.

Might be a nice to have, but not what I bought into Sonos for and not something I’m particularly bothered about. And still not a reason legacy products should stop working - no-one expects them to miraculously become voice-controllable. 

Strange, I’ve not seen any announcement that a legacy product will suddenly stop working. Just no more updates for them, post May 2020. 

While some are clearly getting too caught up in what this announcement means and misinterpreting what’ll happen to individual speakers, if my system has to be split in to modern and legacy systems, separate and unable to be streamed across, from May then they are, by the definition of the USP I was buying the system for in the first place, suddenly not working.

G

I am moving this spring to a new house, and need to add about 5-6 more speakers and a full stereo for the TV - guess where im not gonna buy those. Product of this price and quality should last more than 5 years! I have recommended to my parents that they should buy them, which they did, and now in a few years i gotta teach them an entire new way of playing their music, on top of 100 dollars of new investments.
I am done with this company, disregarding your customers in this way is unacceptable, and not something i will continue to support.
So farewell Sonos - I have bought my final product from you.

U

Well its all been said on this thread. What an appalling decision, which amounts to blackmail. I suspect few people will take the upgrade offer, as all trust in this company has now been shattered.. If anyone has e mail addresses for CEO or shareholders etc it may be useful to circulate these so that the pissed off community can make their feelings known directly rather than through the forum where they can be conveniently ignored.

P

I too am disgusted by Sonos position on this. I have built system up on the basis that software updates would be ongoing. I can no longer trust this company and will not purchase further products. I don’t buy the ‘memory limitation’ line preventing updates. Awful marketing from a company that used to be good. 

A
Userlevel 2

The News has now hit the UK Press, it’s in The Times, Headline Sonos Speake’s are obsolete within months! I think a quick rethink needs to be made on the announcement, but even with this they have lost trust in what was a loyal following. For any management reading these comments let’s see you put this right and admit what a balls up you made. 

 

Ouch!

 

Plus the BBC, Daily Mail, Metro, Evening Standard, The Sun, What HiFi and AOL UK.  The share price has fallen over 2%. At some point will someone at Sonos have a rethink?

L

Like others, I was a loyal Sonos customer.  These are very expensive products for my budget, but I thought they were worth saving for and splurging on.  I recommended Sonos to everyone.  I was looking at purchasing another speaker this summer.  Not now.  I will never purchase another Sonos product after this.  It’s shameful what they are doing.  I cannot afford to upgrade every 5 years; 30% off a new unit is a joke.  Once I can no longer stream Spotify from my legacy speakers, I will be looking at different brands.  If anyone is interested, here is an article on Sonos alternatives. https://www.androidcentral.com/best-sonos-alternatives  I’ve heard good things about Google Home Max in particular.

S
Userlevel 1
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A question to Sonos Management, how are you going to redeem the brand destruction you have just invoked?
use this as an example of my present perception of Sonos, I’ve invested heavily in Sonos kit, I have purchased 9 connect amps and have music everywhere in my house, I’ve been a huge fan and have recommended you to friends and family, I even purchased and set up an amp as a start up for my father in law so he could do the same as we do as he loved the experience we have, with your announcement that you are not supporting legacy kit (including the £5k of kit I own) past May 2020 you have killed all goodwill. You give me the option of spending £3800 as a discounted upgrade to get me back to full support after May, that would make my outlay to Sonos £8,800, but there’s one issue with that, my trust in your company has evaporated..I’d not spend a farthing with you after this disaster! You’ve killed the brand.

B
Userlevel 1
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Apart from anything else this new thread still doesn’t address the issue of what is being done where people own components where there AREN’T any options which we can “Tradeup” to!

I rely on the “Bridge” to fill the gaps in their woeful built-in wifi, and the “Connect” to be able to integrate Sonos with my livingroom Surround Sound setup.

The Boost is the new version of the Bridge, and the Port is the new version of the Connect (but isn’t as good).

Sorry I wasn’t very clear, what I meant was that the Bridge isn’t offering a trade-up option, and the neither was the Port, but that might be because it has yet to be implemented? Either way, it is going to cost us a small fortune just to maintain the same functionality, and I really don’t think I want to take the risk spending any more money on Sonos. I have only had the Connect for a few years which cost me £300 so the thought of shelling out the same again every few years seems ridiculous.

I always had the impression that Sonos was a bit more future-proof than other scenarios, but I am now realising it is far from it. The fundamental problem is that the tech is built into the speaker itself, and the quality of the speaker & amp is arguably where the real cost lies, so when the cheap crappy PCB becomes obsolete, so too does the entire speaker unit! Good quality amps and speakers can last decades, so it makes sense that the design should have an updatable component to enable it to carry on, especially in this day and age. Sadly I have realised this far too late and I only hope that when I sell up, that I can at least get some money back. Thank God that I didn’t make the mistake of adding Sonos to my AV setup!

 

S
Userlevel 1
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A question to Sonos Management, how are you going to redeem the brand destruction you have just invoked?
use this as an example of my present perception of Sonos, I’ve invested heavily in Sonos kit, I have purchased 9 connect amps and have music everywhere in my house, I’ve been a huge fan and have recommended you to friends and family, I even purchased and set up an amp as a start up for my father in law so he could do the same as we do as he loved the experience we have, with your announcement that you are not supporting legacy kit (including the £5k of kit I own) past May 2020 you have killed all goodwill. You give me the option of spending £3800 as a discounted upgrade to get me back to full support after May, that would make my outlay to Sonos £8,800, but there’s one issue with that, my trust in your company has evaporated..I’d not spend a farthing with you after this disaster! You’ve killed the brand.

P
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

I’m considering setting up a crowd funded legal  challenge to get advice on legality and taking it further. It seems to me equipment in full working order should continue to be software supported. Additionally, if perfectly good new(ish) equipment won’t be supported if plugged into legacy equipment the facts should be clearly stated in the buying information so that customers know clearly what the full facts are. Nothing that I can see says this. 

VW had terrible publicity over their problems, a major crowd funded legal action is ongoing and still continues to damage their reputation. Nothing good can come from this Sonos. 


This is a great idea!

It’s also heartbreaking thing that as we have seen from SEC files Sonos has known this. The real reason is not in technical side as they have told for us.

The owners did get this kind of message about the situation long time ago:

“We expect that in the near to intermediate term, this backward compatibility will no longer be practical or cost-effective, and we may decrease or discontinue service for our older products,” says Sonos in a recent SEC filing.

And from SEC file you can also see that they have been thinking already about bad PR. So actually they did know what’s going to happen, but because of $$$$$$$ they decided to go forward anyway. Of course I believe they did not know how huge problem this will be.. Clearly some people have been thinking that maybe some customers will get angry, but now actually 99% of Sonos customers are furious..

Now the decision maker can count how many $$$$$$$ they have lost already and how much they will loose in the future. This is a catastrophic situation for the company.

I can make a book about this. For the dummies: How to kill a brand with a single email

B
Userlevel 1

I regret the day I bought my first SONOS device (2012) and invested quite a lot of money (> 4000 $) on SONOS products (CONNECT, 4x PLAY:1, 3x PLAY:3, 1x PLAY:5, SUB, PLAYBASE) since then.

 

SONOS is finished for me and I will not buy any products from SONOS ever again. 

G
Userlevel 3
Badge +3

The Sonos email containing the now infamous announcement told me that my ZP100s, and ZP120s would become legacy in May.

But I have a ZP120/Connect Amp (NOT the new black AMP) which I bought from Sonos earlier in the year. This was to replace a failed ZP100 or ZP120 (I can’t now recall) and sold at a discount.

That wasn’t on the list in my email. Which makes me think that the hardware shortcomings in my ZP100s/ZP120s have been remedied in the most recent version of the Connect Amp.

Why can’t Sonos offer a hardware upgrade for legacy equipment? Or perhaps better: why *won’t* Sonos offer a hardware upgrade for legacy equipment?

Gazer
Userlevel 3
Badge +2

Well i have 5 products that will not receive software updates from May …. But hay sonos its only £2000 worth of gear that works just fine and they look as new the day they came out of there boxes and you what me to put them in a land fill site…. But on the other hand my controller 100 is still classed as a modern products...Hmmm might switch it on when i get home tonight and see.

 

A
Userlevel 3

Interesting that with all the furore ongoing there’s no hint of crisis management PR getting involved. Leaves the impression that this reaction has been factored in and doesn’t require any additional handling.

P
Userlevel 5
Badge +1

Still a deafening silence from Sonos with any coherent technical explanation. Most of us just want to be able to stream music reliably from the internet and/or a NAS. What has changed/will change so dramatically that legacy products will not be able to provide this capability?

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